


It's Cold in the Desert at Night

by BartyMellvue



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Discussions of Past Abuse, Flashbacks, M rating for M rated source material, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22355029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BartyMellvue/pseuds/BartyMellvue
Summary: Trevor's got the long suffering wife of a cartel boss of whom he's infatuated with in gentle captivity, and Mike is back hiding out under the same roof as he is for the first time in nine years until further notice— he thinks things are going pretty fucking great, but Michael's working through the emotions of having his best friend again, forced to remember things that he tried forgetting when he left this life behind.
Relationships: Michael De Santa & Trevor Philips, Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 15
Kudos: 51





	1. Minor Turbulence

Michael had long ago untied Mrs. Madrazo from her restraints keeping her in that chair— shortly after Trevor had left, even. He’d also quite literally turned his back away from her, covering his eyes with both of his palms, waiting for her to stand up,  _ “you know, I can't see anything right now, anything could happen while my attention is someplace else!”  _ But he hadn't heard her do anything, scream, run away, or even  _ walk away. _ He had turned his head back towards her, finding her with her hands in her lap, looking around, muttering to herself. “ _ Mess. Mess.” _

“Mrs. Madrazo, you can do… Whatever you want. You can  _ leave.” _ But she'd waved a hand at him, almost swatting, as she rose up from the chair, beginning to pick up the pizza boxes and beer bottles that had given the place its atmosphere. She wasn't leaving. She was  _ cleaning. _ From that to calling Trevor a  _ good man,  _ with utmost sincerity, and now seemingly, downright refusing to escape. 

_ I’m not awake right now, _ Mike’s thoughts had suggested,  _ this is some kind of dream. I fell asleep at the cement works. This is what's happening, isn't it? _

But this was about… Two hours ago. 

_ Now?  _ Now he was sitting in the armchair (that definitely shouldn't be outside) in the bare, almost grassless front yard, the sun had almost completely set, the last of its light in the western horizon while he had his own on the smoldering end of his cigarette, glowing a little more with each drag. He was just getting his earbuds out, his hands making their way to his breast pocket,  _ I can do the same thing I can do at home, I just gotta close my eyes, pretend that the desert dust isn't whipping at my face with every breeze from the…  _

Just as he’d put one in one ear, something stopped him from doing the same with the other as he’d heard the jet of a low flying plane…  _ No… _ Louder things as well. His eyes darted to scan the skies, squinting and obscuring the blinding, orange sun from his sights, seeing that plane he’d first heard, on top of two fighter jets.  _ What could possibly— “ _ **_Christ!_ ** _ ” _

An explosion from a missile shot right at an engine, and Michael could feel it reverberate in his chest, and he couldn't tear his gaze away, hopping the chain link fence, as if there wasn't a gateless, open walk out of the yard right in front of him, completely transfixed as he saw the plane be shot a second time, sputtering, spitting flame as it began to plunge into the Alamo sea… And there was all but one thought in his mind.  _ I hope that aviator wasn't  _ _ my _ _ aviator. _

~

Trevor’s feet reached the ground, making a small running tumble, but not falling over— his parachute floating to the ground behind him as he unhooked it and pried the thing off of his back, making an all too leisurely walk home in the near-darkness, as if he didn't just get into a mid-air scuffle with privatized military, and then the  _ actual  _ military, failing to jack their cargo plane for the world’s (and to be fair, his own) best interests. 

Though he wouldn't admit this, he felt a certain kind of warmth as he saw the lights of his trailer, as well as Michael _ , _ his suit jacket off, out in front— and he’d made more of a jog the closer he’d gotten, the sounds of his footsteps growing faster alerting Mike, who was just getting up to see him, his first thing that he said to him making clear that he was just a little upset—

“What the  _ fuck _ was  _ that?  _ Was that  _ you?  _ Did  _ you do that?”  _ But Trevor was seemingly taking it in stride, being yelled at like some kind of dog for say, ruining the upholstery, his smile that had absentmindedly taken residence on his face the moment he’d seen Mike hadn’t faded, even with the other party’s aggression.

_ “Were you waiting up just for me?” _ He trotted right past, seeing two more trash bags outside than he remembered being there last, not thinking much of it.

“I’m serious, T, what did you  _ do?” _

“Well, what I  _ meant _ to do was intercept a cargo plane of Merryweather’s—” He stops, correcting himself, “I mean, I  _ did _ do that, It just didn't go according to plan. I’d taken it over, took hold of it, but I guess the Air Force had caught on and uh, you know, did that thing they did with the whole  _ shooting me down _ , or whatever. But I’ve made my peace with it! Massive cache of weapons and a big new plane not in the possession of TPI, but now it's not in the possession of them either. That should count for something! Right?  _ Mikey?” _

“Won't they be looking for you?”

Trevor wouldn't even  _ amuse  _ that question, that  _ perfectly reasonable _ question, when it was Sandy Shores concerned. It was really that simple, no matter the fact that everyone in this wasteland  _ knew _ Trevor Philips, and in most cases would call the police if he’d gotten within twenty feet of him, hell, everything in a specific radius of the Grand Senora was  _ No Snitching Country—  _ the unstable man’s shrug of apathy as he entered through the front door had gotten Mike heated. Forcing him into hiding by kidnapping Mrs. Madrazo, forcing them into hiding specifically in this  _ shithole,  _ worse than any motel they’d stayed at over the course of their eighteen, nineteen year history of crime across the United States, Trevor having little to  _ no concern _ for their safety seemed to be something that was just going to tip the scales in...

The two of them re-entered the trailer, Patricia just leaving Trevor’s bedroom, having stripped and redressed the bedding after simply shaking out the debris—  _ she would have to go look for a laundromat at some other point, _ she figured, looking to the both of them with a halfhearted smile, as if this were somehow nothing. 

The scales? Balanced. Okay, not completely. But not enough for Michael to completely remove himself from the equation, and just enough for him to… Be  _ just alright _ with having to hide here for the time being. That didn't mean he was happy about it. Trevor stepped forward, whirling around to look at Mike with an encouraging smile, probably one of the few ones he’d seen without him being in the middle of committing atrocities;

“This feel familiar to you at all, Mikey? You, unattached, us, in the middle of nowhere, laying low after whatever we just did—”

“We? What  _ you _ did,”

“Semantics! C’mon, only for a little while. You need it—” He says, balling his hands into fists and lightly, repeatedly punching into the other man's tender, meaty arm. “—Rebuilding your callous, brother, making up all that time spent with the, the, the  _ tofu _ and the  _ yoga _ and the  _ kale _ and shit!” Michael let out a groan,  _ not to say that he didn't somewhat agree with the sentiment,  _ but still just feeling the effects of the situation.

“Okay,  _ fine,  _ T, I’m staying, but it’s not like I have a choice.” Trevor let out a heavenly sigh,  _ hitting Mike in the side again,  _ before already taking his pants off to retire to his bed…  _ Their _ … Bed… Oh, good  _ God.  _ It really  _ was _ the same as twenty-something years ago. 

Mike would definitely be lying to himself— well, he  _ is  _ lying to himself, because he  _ was _ currently pretending that there wasn't something very  _ small _ inside of him that was appreciating Trevor’s strange jubilation in keeping  _ him,  _ as well as Patricia, captive in this trailer for the time being, after all the hostility he expressed towards him on a constant basis doing whatever it was that they were doing together, he seemed to ache for this, and it felt _not okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!!! if you see any mistakes or words repeated too much please lmk cuz i wanted to make more edits before i posted this but i forgot What Edits Specifically so... i guess i'm relying on others for now haha
> 
> comments mean the world to me 🥺


	2. His Face

The two of them had slept beside each other last night, fully clothed, on top of all the blankets. Trevor didn't quite remember being conscious whenever it was that Michael came to bed, and waking up with that weight beside him was jarring, to say the least, his head turning to see the back of his, one of the most familiar sights in the world to him, from a time long passed— something, just last month, he’d assumed he’d never see again.

The mattress squeaked as Trevor sat up, the corners of his lips curling up in a simper as he’d been looking over his friend’s motionless body, seeing his phone cradled in both of his hands, little headphones in his ears, hearing the faintest sound of music still playing. He craned his neck over, and out of curiosity, gave the wire a little yank, taking one earbud and leaning in to hear what he’d been listening to,

_“—You’ve broken my heart and now you leave me,_ [ _love of my life_ ](https://youtu.be/T73WhWTawCE) _, can’t you see? Bring it back, bring it back, don't take it away from me, because, you don't know—”_ Though he removed it from his ear and sort of, threw it back in the direction of Michael’s head, as opposed to gently placing it back in for him, he hummed what remained of the line. 

Not seeing his eyelids flutter, or his face flinch in any way made Trevor’s brows knit together, hesitating a moment before he held his fingers hardly an inch away from Mike’s nose to tell if he’d even been breathing at all, as you would with a newborn who looked a little _too_ peaceful— _which was funny, because it felt more natural for Mike to be experiencing this the other way around with this meth head._ He was just completely _out,_ wasn't he? And he felt his breath. _Yeah. He’s there._

And Trevor just _sat_ there. _Staring_ at him. And for some time, too. Did he really have a chance to look at him like this before? There wasn't an opportunity, not like this. And, you know, he didn't _look_ like _this,_ not awake, and it was that much easier to appreciate him without his completely disillusioned, sort of _“everything is shit”_ thing he has going on. To be fair, he had his very own brand of it, but it was— it was just _different,_ alright? Like, Trevor had constructive criticisms of whatever it is that he doesn't like, but Mike just refuses to believe that you can _do_ _anything_ about it, and it annoyed the hell out of him. But while unconscious, that melted away, and his face, his hair, even with nine more years of age, he was inviting… He looked like home to him, the friend he grieved, his missing piece, he was still trying to comprehend that he was here with him— his hand beginning to hover over the other man’s cheek, feeling the heat coming off him, and...

**He left him behind.** Suddenly, with a growl, Trevor’s face had immediately soured from his return to clarity, retracting his whole arm as if he were _revolted_ by the thought of touching him, and got up from bed in a huff, feeling like he could have torn the skin off of Michael’s beautiful, backstabbing face. He’d come right back to how it was before, as in, how he felt in the past few weeks about all of this. He left him _behind,_ he left him for _dead,_ he _betrayed him—_

This moment had come just in time for Trevor, as the springs of the mattress creaked when Mike rolled over, rubbing his face with a bothered groan as he was returning to the waking world, feeling that just being in this room for an extended period of time had left a film of filth on his skin, his body craving to be clean, despite whether or not he trusted the water out here.

_“Open your eyes, look up to the skies and—”_ He unplugged his headphones, halting the music that played and carefully wrapped them up, putting them inside the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket that lie halfway on the nightstand, while Trevor had been rifling through his closet for whatever he’d be wearing for today’s crimes against humanity.

“Well, I’m gonna go shower,” He says, looking over to him for some sort of acknowledgement, to which he’d given the bare minimum, a comparably quiet _“You go do that,”_ as he was getting out of his polo shirt and into a tee, not bothering to grace Michael with his gaze. Something in particular about his tone seemed miffed, when he’d just been going on about all the upsides to this forced cohabitation was last night. What the hell was _his_ problem? 

The moment he stepped out of the door, the trailer was like another place entirely. Sure, tidying and throwing some things away was one thing, but this was _livable_. Well, still no door on the bathroom to speak of, and no shower curtain either. He wasn't exactly sure where Mrs. Madrazo was either, but it wasn't his concern when anywhere else was just where he’d prefer her to be, as he stripped off all of his clothes and left them in a pile right outside where a door would be, before turning the shower head on, ducking out of the way as it ran brown, and then less, and then less, and then… Cloudy. It was as good as it was going to get. 

“—By the way, when you're done, we’re leaving to go get ammunition, and then get you some clothes, because I can’t have you fucking _embarassing_ me in your _designer fucking suit,_ asshole.”

“Got it, can you just give me ten minutes?” Michael’s eyes squeezed shut as the lukewarm water ran over his head and down his body, but he couldn't take ten seconds to relax before he’d realized, “Do you— do you even _own_ a towel? _One_ towel?”

“Use the wall!”

“Use the fucking wall? I just finish showering and I wipe my naked fucking body all over the wall? To dry? Is that what you want me to do? Would you fucking like that, Trevor?”

“I would love that, actually, Michael!”

“You would? You would love the _wet_ imprint of my fucking _COCK and BALLS—_ ”

Trevor tossed a beach towel out of his room and on top of the aforementioned pile of clothes, which had stopped Mike’s escalating rage in its tracks, his head going back under the water with a sigh.

“What, no thank you?”

“Thank you. Fucker.”

~

“So where’s Mrs. Madrazo?” It was twenty-some minutes later, and though not totally dry, Mike by this point had been dressed, and was now only dealing with his damp hair without the likes of any comb in sight, running his fingers through his hair in his attempts to style in the dramatically shattered mirror.

“She found the washer and dryer in the garage. Asked if we could get her, uh…” Trevor’s face scrunched up, and he began repeatedly snapping, motioning at Michael for assistance,

_“Detergent?”_

“Yeah, that. I gave her a hundred and let her go get it herself. And just, whatever she wanted. Told her we’d be out doing stuff.” 

“You know, you're not being the best kidnapper, with the whole, _letting her leave and do what she wants_ thing,” he sneers, his reflection leaving his view as he turned to Trevor, who had been waiting for him in the doorway, (in a bathroom this small, basically right next to him.)

“No, no, _see,_ I consider kidnapping just the act of taking her and bringing her home with me. When she’s here, that's just her, here with me.”

“...In captivity?” Michael’s eyes narrow, opening the trailer door and walking out towards the Bodhi, Trevor following right behind as he continued in defense of himself, walking around to get into the driver's seat, starting the engine— and looking to his friend, pointing a finger in his face,

“She can do whatever she likes! She’s just staying! You’ll see, she’ll be back! She's a free lady, alright?”

“Whatever you say!” He responds, throwing his hands up a bit out of self preservation, “If you say she is, sure. We’ll just see if she comes back.”

“She will!”

_“Right.”_ Mike let an arm drape over the side door as Trevor stepped on the gas, eventually making a turn onto Mountain View, then cornering onto Algonquin, the gun store immediately in their sights. He had already started opening the passenger door as they started pulling into the parking lot, only for the truck to quickly veer out of there back onto the street, if not for his sudden white knuckle grip on the handle, he would have swung with the door and fallen right out of the vehicle.

“T!” He shouted, his heart still in his throat as he desperately clung to the dashboard with his other arm, looking over at the man with eyes as big as dinner plates, “—What the fuck is _wrong_ with you??”

“You’re _not_ making me look bad in front of fucking _Melvin!_ ” He snarls out before making another hasty turn, even off-roading for a bit before getting back into the road, bypassing other vehicles and threading through them with his big, menacing truck. “I don't respect that man in the _least_ but I can't show up with _you_ in tow while you're still dressed like you're— like you're about to chop down the big, historical tree in the center of Little Town, USA and turn some kind of nature reserve into a parking lot— or, or sell car insurance! _Fuck!”_

“Oh my _God_ , Trevor, you— you get on my case about how I’ve assimilated into Vinewood and their bullshit and you— _how is this different???_ You can't be _seen_ with me because I’m wearing a suit?” Trevor then clips a hybrid with another sharp turn onto Route 68,

“It's _completely_ different! _I’m_ not a sell-out!”

“It's not even a _nice_ suit I’m wearing! You hate people who conform to whatever culture it is, the society that they live in, everybody but _you! You’re_ the one _conforming!_ You've done everything to desperately fit in with these— these _fake_ , not even _real_ rednecks, what identity crisis while I was gone made you drop everything and decide to live _here?_ In a heap of shit?” Trevor had actually been _desperately_ searching for some words to counteract this accusation, but his lower jaw clenched forward, and pulled into the parking lot of this not-quite strip mall just as recklessly as he’d been driving so far.

“I’ve been _gracious_ enough to let you stay in _my house_ while we wait for all of this to blow over, and you're here psychoanalyzing me? Because I, and I _admit,_ that I’m trying to maintain a specific image, without you, the _legend that I hyped up,_ cramping my fucking style with his— with his _premium linens!”_ There was just so much for Michael to respond to, like how ‘all of this’ was all his fault, the fact that he was admitting his accusation to be true, _to a point,_ and now being under the impression that Trevor had apparently _talked about him_ , but for whatever reason, something entirely different had taken priority, as he gaped at the signage for the Discount Store.

“...You know there's a Suburban only a little ways down there, right?” And the fact that Mike refused to respond to anything of his choice out of whatever he’d just said to him made Trevor’s face twist with agitation, mercilessly raising his voice in pitch to mock him,

_“Mimimimimimimi, you know there's a Suh-BUR-ban only a little ways down—_ **UGH**! Are you telling me you’d rather wear shit almost _definitely_ made with child labor, from the same place where upper middle class fourteen year olds with ruined personalities get their clothes— instead of going anywhere _poor people_ also go?” 

_“OKAY!”_ His scathing read was just a little too much for him to even _try_ to retort, leading Michael to get out of the truck and accepting this defeat if it meant not hearing any more commentary for a while, “Okay, okay, Jesus! We’ll go here! _Christ!_ I’ll dress like this mythical, authentic, every-man for you and I’ll only get ethically sourced clothes! Is that alright with you?”

“Well, the stuff here was probably made with some kind of child labor too, just several seasons ago.”

Mike buried his face in his hands, and Trevor followed him inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY! Chapter 2! I'm sorry if it ended in a weird place but I feel weird making a short first chapter and an extra long second chapter, i'd rather ease into longer chapters, you know? and i was gonna SCREAM if i went another day without posting anything!!! 
> 
> if you see any mistakes or anything i could edit, just lmk cuz i don't have anybody formally beta-ing my stuff lol


	3. The Mouth Don't Stop

Buy clothes. Hit one town. Burn those clothes, buy more at the next. Well, for the most part. It's not like they were _too_ vigilant about it. 

_“Yeah, no, I want to be buried in these cowboy boots, you’ll have to remind me.”_

_“That’s exactly what you said about those Beatle boots last year.”_

_“I can't fucking find those! You know what— if you can’t find either of them when I’m dead, can you just give me a viking funeral? Set me on fire, push me out into Lake Best. Any body of water, really.”_ Under the assumption back then that Trevor would be the first of them to die. But Mike’s life moved on from that while Trevor seemed to have kept shopping at these places this whole time.

Here he was, feeling completely out of place, having to have all of this run through his head while T seemed unbothered, like some switch in his head had been going between perfectly okay with pretending things were getting back to the way they were and being so fucking _angry_ with his _rat fuck piece of shit ex fucking friend, partner in fucking crime—_ and it only took a few minutes after walking in here to go back to the former. And now he was remembering just how much shopping with Trevor was like... Shopping with his _wife._

“Mike. _Mikey.”_ Trevor, unprovoked, lie another shirt over his arm that he thought would be good, on top of another he’d suggested, and the two that Michael chose on his own. _Like nothing had changed._

No, not shopping with Amanda. More like this fictional, idealized woman in his head that he’d dreamed of from the beginning, who didn't really exist— one he was able to baselessly project onto her from the beginning that got him into their relationship. 

He picked up the shirt that had just been pushed onto him by the hanger, just to take a look. Man, Trevor has _always_ been trying to put him in blue from the beginning. It kinda worked though, didn't it? That's still his main color out of his wardrobe at home, of which was no doubt surrounded by Madrazo’s underlings right now, waiting for him to just try coming back. 

Michael turned to see him, and despite Trevor being capable of picking out and recommending completely reasonable clothes for him, he would still gravitate to the more batshit variety for himself.

“—Do you dress like that on purpose, T? Like, refusing to fit into any crowd specifically to be different ever since Punk died?” Trevor, holding up a rather cheap, definitely a bit too small for him leopard print suit jacket against his chest, looked over at him, only with a defined frown, only resigning to flip him off instead of giving the loaded question any response of real substance. Probably because, in a way, he was completely right. And something about that made Mike laugh. _“Yeah. Nice.”_

Trevor turned away, as there was no way he was going to let him see the smile of satisfaction on his face from the mere sound of his laugh— something he remembered striving to hear on a regular basis when they first became friends, trying to instigate it whenever he could, looking for that reaction from him. But he didn't really want to think about that right now, and he _certainly_ didn't want M to begin to think that he may or may not be in the position to fall right back into searching for his… Not his _approval_ , or _validation,_ but certainly something of the sort. Shit, he didn't want him to know that he actively searched for whatever that was ever, in the first place. His jaw clenched forward, trying to resist the urge to make another one of his little glances over at him, 

_“Just go see what fits and get it so we can leave. We’re trying to get shit done today.”_

“Right. Of course,” Mike mumbles as he was about to head into the dingy dressing room, anticipating leaving his dignity at the door— before Trevor made a little _“ooh”_ sound, before making a two-note whistle for him, his arm stretching outwards towards the other man, yet another hung shirt hand, shaking it at him without looking over until he took it from him. _“Fine.”_

Once in seclusion, and met with a full length mirror covered in the typical grime that wasn't just his reflection, it was the emotional equivalent of having his head dunked into a bucket of ice, suddenly being hyper aware of his strange existence right now, and everything that was happening. His somewhat irrational outburst that first roped Franklin into his life, Amanda cheating, his _second_ outburst that involved pulling that house off its stilts, the heist he needed to get together to pay Madrazo back, _his insistence that he use that fucking line that he loved from his original Ludendorff performance…_ Being found, and everything between that and _now_ that led up to _this_. 

And he felt this _sinking_ feeling that overwhelmed his body, his face beginning to fall with it. Even if sometimes he was able to detach himself emotionally from his current state, he really couldn't avoid moments like these when it all came crashing back down on him. His family was gone, for now. And he wasn't sure if he was even going to be able to convince them to come back. All he had was _him,_ and that was a whole other story.

Trevor himself was doing his job in convincing him things were going to be just fine until the rug was pulled out from under him this morning, with the way he’d been treating him. And it was only now he could acknowledge this weird _compassion_ he still had for him in secret, and just felt awful about how volatile it was between them. It was so strange, trying to reacquaint himself with the part of him that still looked to Trevor and thought of him as _his best friend,_ and how that space that was left was never filled by any other person in the past nine years… And he began feeling that _guilt_ again, of which for a while he believed he’d been succeeding at pushing deep, _deep_ down ever since he’d agreed to Dave _killing_ him in exchange for his family’s safety… Which may have unfortunately, _definitely_ been the driving factor that landed him in therapy.

But his hands touched the fabric of the russet-toned, _third fucking shirt_ that was _picked out_ for him, and he's suddenly forced himself back into the moment, as opposed to his mind, and figured that he may have just spent a little too long staring at himself in the mirror over this.

“What the hell are you doing in there?” Trevor inquires with annoyance, as nearly fifteen minutes had passed, and in that time having just rung his own stuff up while Mike still hadn't come out. “If you're having some kind of dressing room montage in your head in there, I’m _obligated_ to—” The door opens. Out comes Michael, various selections made today on one arm, and on his other, the shirt and suit pants he’d been wearing all day yesterday— now wearing the blue plaid shirt and the cream colored bermudas. T stopped in his tracks, his tongue giving a little click, and he really wasn't able to surprise his grin, even as the months-older man egged,

“Well? Is this acceptable, Trev? Am I allowed to be seen out with you?” It was so _weird,_ looking back at him and seeing glimpses of how he was when he was just barely twenty, his new brand new partner, how he smiled the same way as he used to, seemingly for some profound reason that he could never figure out.

_“Yeah._ Yeah, it's great,” Trevor says, absently rubbing one of his eyes, “It all fit?”

“Everything fits.”

“Then get it all,” His voice seemed to get quieter, his head nodding in the direction of the Bodhi, already making a stride towards the door, “Let’s go,” before leaving Mike behind to complete his purchase so he could start the truck.

He could hear the muffled sounds of Channel X playing on the radio through the storefront glass, tossing dollar bills onto the table as he waited for the cashier to go through it, and craning his neck back to see Trevor get on his phone. _Trevor on his phone,_ a concept he’d barely thought about since he watched him immediately get it out to record Lazlow in the LS River, dancing, petrified, in his underwear. And he wondered just how the two of them pictured each other, in their heads, before all this, in a world the way that it is now— their old assumptions of each other that it would simply be hypothetical, and could have never been reality, but—

_“Sir?”_

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. _Thanks,”_ Michael mutters, being brought out of his train of thought being interrupted, grabbing the plastic bag and making his way out.

“Have a nice day.”

“You too.” A delicate bell rings as per the mechanism of the doors, but he’s immediately met with Trevor’s voice, _barking_ at his phone that he held in front of his face. 

“You can tell _Keith_ that _white-dreadlocks-having FUCK_ to _BURN_ this _FUCKING RECORD!_ Or _remove it_ from his _—_ from his _pre-determined bullshit digital playlist,_ I don't _care_ , I’m fucking _sick_ of hearing _FEAR’s_ 1985 display of ground level, neandrathal, paleolithic displays of _chauvanism_ and outright _sexism_ , of which _directly fucking contradict the punk ideology!”_ Trevor looks up as a very scared intern working the phones attempts to respond in a sniveling voice, and he flashes a smile at Mike, seeing him get in beside him, before getting right back to it. “Oh, and _another thing!_ I’m pretty fucking sure there's more than just Miss Cervenka, in terms of WOMEN in the genre. You should get around to playing _them_ instead of him playing his old fucking group’s ~ _deeeep cuuuutttssss~_ half the _fucking_ time! Or this _FUCKING BULLSHIT FUCKING SONG!_ I can come over there and improve the sound via hostile takeover _anytime I want!”_

Trevor lets out a sharp _howl_ into the phone before pressing End Call, shuttling it off and letting it sit on the dashboard.

“You have such a way with words.”

“I do!”

“I feel like you’d love the internet. You’d really belong.” This, of course, makes Trevor’s eyes roll far back into his head.

_“Very fucking funny, Michael._ Nice to know how you feel about any type of expression against any mild injustice, let alone activism. Everything I said was completely right and you know it. I hate that bastard.”

“Then change the station if you hate him so much!”

“Nothing good is _ON!”_ His voice upturns in the same way his assimilated valley-girl daughter whines while making a J turn out of the lot, driving a little more gently this time around to Ammu-nation. “Jesco’s been out this past week so Rebel Radio hasn't been playing Bobby. They won’t even fucking play _Woody!_ They’ve only been playing anything that be classified as folk in the dead of night, which is deeply fucking unfair.” Mike decided to intervene and begin fiddling with the knob, having the strangest saccharine feelings hearing T do that thing that he would do long before, where he would call musicians by their first names as if he were an intimate friend, and would even start talking about them in that way. 

“I don't see why you can't just make tapes like you used to.”

“This thing is too _new_ to have a tape deck, and every time I’ve put a CD in this piece of shit it spits it out. Radio’s just what I gotta use.”

“I’m changing it to 102.3.”

_“Sure, whatever._ ” Mike was a little bewildered with his response of apathy, when he was _pretty sure_ that this was the one channel the stereo at the trailer was set to. It was something about the other man’s face, looking genuinely bummed out about something, whether it was the radio being shit or being _talked down to_ a little, his eyes were big and doleful, and for whatever reason, Michael couldn’t leave well enough alone, he was compelled to say something.

“You know, Trev, I’m not... Completely opposed to your _justice_ thing you've always had going on. It was always comforting to know you had... _Ideals,"_ He says, shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he made this attempt to try and salvage a moment from this conversation. "You know. The implication that you had an idea in your head of what a better world would be like. And you _are_ right. About the… The Black Flag guy. He’s kind of a dickhead, ain't he?”

_“Yeah.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you saw this chapter in the first two hours of it being published, unfinished, i'm so sorry lol.  
> I ALSO wanted to apologize for repeatedly going "oh chapter 3 is coming tonight" only to get sidetracked 🙈  
> I have a GTA IV&V combo fic up right now called [The Man He Left Behind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22290094),which is gonna be Niko/Packie centric and gonna have supporting plot Trikey eventually— and two Nickie IV fics coming up. Chapter 1 is a prologue (or half of a prologue even) and only contains stuff you'll hear Packie talk about in V.  
> And I'm here to say that... **I'll literally sponsor one or two of you in getting hold of a copy of IV.** Just get a hold of me on the Gay GTA discord. I'm not opposed to giving you my actual money to help me rejuvenate the IV fandom. It'll mean the world to me if you give IV or my IV fics a chance <3


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